Going Comando

Nothing much new to report on the home front. I'm closing in on my last few weeks of working a routine schedule until the fall (sad!) and we are gearing up for our summer vacation to NY in two weeks. I'm stock piling travel toys in dreaded preparation for the 16 hour trip. We are breaking it up, theres no two ways about that. First we will spend a few days in Rhinebeck visiting Chris's side of the family and then on up to the Adirondacks to visit with my side. I'm particularly excited to get back to the ADKs because its been something like 8 years since I was last up there. Growing up we used to go several times a year, I can imagine it will feel like a homecoming. Once our car crosses over into familiar territory I'll begin to feel the butterflies of excited anticipation. I love that. I'll get to point out personal landmarks to Chris: "When Cindy and I were 16 we hitchhiked this road home from the bog with boys we had just met. And there is the bar where my sister, Leslie, and I hustled some trash talking Foosball players for a round of beers. Over there, on that corner was Mandy's Moldy Maggot Market, a little penny candy store we used to raid for tootsie pops and Charleston chews that had been sitting on the self since Nixon was in office. And there! There is the campground where our whole family, cousins, aunts, uncles and all set up the Hodge-Mitchell compound and camped every summer I was in high school. And this, this is the lake. The lake where, the last time I was here, I lay on a blanket with my sister, Kimmy, under the stars and watched the Northern Lights."

Liam will be meeting a legion of family members for the first time, his aunt, uncle and cousins in Rhinebeck and then my aunt, cousins and second cousins upstate. Just in time to make a lasting first impression Liam has a new party trick; he's learned how to take his diaper off! The implications of this are manifold. So far we have managed to avoid a fecal disaster, but our days are numbered.